One of Trump’s ugliest moments as President, and there have been far too many, occurred yesterday when, surrounded by applauding auto executives, he rolled back Biden’s 50 mpg gasoline mandate to 35 mpg by 2031, assuring along with suspension of tax credits, the death of electric vehicles in the U.S.
This can only mean more trucks, more SUVs. And—yes—more carbon discharge, escalating ocean temperatures already soaring, the disruption of marine life, and rising seas as the Alaskan Arctic and Antarctica glaciers continue to melt.
In the meantime, what a boon all of this is to China’s burgeoning EV sales in world markets that includes Europe as well as Africa, Asia and Oceania, some models selling in the $10,000 dollar range. China now is a majority stock holder in Volvo.
But Trump thinks climate change is just a hoax, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, declaring on signing the bill into law that climate change is “the greatest scam in American history, the Green New Scam a quest to end the gasoline powered car. This is what they wanted to do even though we have more gasoline than any other country by far.”
What Trump has just done will have its consequences, the best estimates of media and environmental groups informing us that under the earlier standards, gasoline consumption would have been reduced by 14 billion gallons by 2050: Long term, more drought, more forest fires and, ominously, the dissolution of ocean currents fundamental to mammal well-being, which includes ourselves.
Trump’s lackeys argue the president’s bill is a boon to consumers, reducing car prices by a projected $1000, as if that’s going to dent a stagnant auto market, the average vehicle price now $50,000 and faulting on auto loans at a record high.
Mind you, this is just empty rhetoric when it comes to curbing inflation, The truth is the president’s tariffs potentially increase builder costs from $7,500 to $10,000 per home, with every $1,000 increase in the median price of a new home pricing out roughly 106,000 potential buyers, according to the National Home Builders Association.
Along with rising home prices, this president’s hysteria when it comes to renewables is costing you monthly electric bills averaging 12% over those of 2024, all of which means less disposable income, and fated to impact low wage households the most.
But back to CO₂, pollutants from tailpipe emissions like nitrogen oxides (NO), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and particulate matter hasten poor air quality and generate respiratory health issues as well.
Trump gets none of this. He runs government as a business, reaping profits for himself and family members. A derelict president, he’s more absent than present in the Oval Office, this fiscal year thus far, spending $371 million dollars on flights at tax payer expense to play golf at his Florida haven, Mar-a-Lago.
Off message as usual, he used the occasion to assault Minnesota’s Somali community whom, the day before, he called “garbage.” Today, it was “they had “destroyed Minnesota” and “destroyed our country.” The “Somalians should be out of here.”
If I asked you what was the fastest warming area of the U.S. outside of Alaska, would it surprise you that it’s New England, where I was born and raised in my early years? The winters I knew as a child are filled with memories of frequent snow fall, frozen lakes, hockey, sledding, skiing, and maple syrup.
Weather experts report New England “has heated up by 2.5C (4.5F) on average from 1900 to 2024, far in excess of the global average, with the world warming by around 1.3C due to the release of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels” (The Guardian, 4 December 2025).
That’s a shocking increase and may prove a portent of what lies ahead. The UN and climate experts have set a maximum goal of 1.5°C (2.7°F) of warming above pre-industrial levels as the threshold, above which we reach the tipping point of near impossible reversal.
Meanwhile, Trump ignores the coming apocalyptic fallout of unrestrained fossil fuel policy, eco systems destroyed, famine common, forest fires ubiquitous, unbearable heat, polluted air, whales and elephants reduced to children’s picture books.
In sum, the Trump administration’s assault on the environment in the context of exponential climate change exhibits all too well the earmarks of corporate denial in the pursuit of monetary gain, whose consequences none of us will escape.
A nation can survive incompetence; what it cannot survive is deliberate blindness to the world burning at its door.
–RJ
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Brimmings: up from the well 